Think, please
Don't get lost in the crowd.
8-15-22
In The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevski gives us a story of Jesus coming to earth during the Spanish Inquisition. He only heals a few of the suffering crowd before soldiers arrest and deliver him to the Grand Inquisitor. That old fellow commences to tell him where he went wrong.
Jesus, according to this astute theologian, attempted to give people freedom when most of them want nothing to do with freedom. What they do want, according to the Inquisitor and presumably his church, are food and comforts; easy answers to questions no matter how complex or perplexing; and entertainment, largely to relieve them of the need or temptation to think.
Still, today, too many churches are like the Inquisitor's in that they lure people away from the freedom Christ would give them.
I mean, if people choose to believe that evolution is fake news and the earth is only about 5000 years old, that's their business -- except insofar as such beliefs discourage them from thinking, because declining to think has consequences that resonate throughout our nation and beyond.
After a lecture, a person confronted a prominent theologian and asked, "Dr. Barth, do you really believe a serpent spoke to Eve?" He responded, "Ma'am, I don't care if the serpent spoke. My interest is in what he said."
That, I'll argue, was an answer worthy of Jesus.
I mean, his disciples asked him, "Why do you speak to them [crowds] in parables?"
Jesus answered, "To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.... I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.... For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and they have closed their eyes and ears, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears; lest they should understand (italics mine) with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear...." (Matthew 13:10-17).
In other words, people who understand are blessed. Jesus trusts that people are capable of understanding, and that doing so can offer them a valid claim to discipleship and a path to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Understanding clearly requires both desire to understand and willingness to work to achieve that desire.
Now I, a teacher by trade, am a fan of formal education, especially when it promotes understanding as well as offering vocational skills. But here I'm not advocating for schools, only for a mindset that requires a good part of our free time to include learning stuff that can help us think more effectively and independently, which the preponderance of our culture's entertainment does not.
So please treat your mind to a free ebook copy of "The Grand Inquisitor". If you are a good and patient reader, get the whole context with The Brothers Karamazov.
And for plenty more recommendations, here's the best place I know.
Happy forever,